ERP brings efficiency in globalization efforts

With the advent of BRIC nations, especially India and China, every organization view globalization as an opportunity for growth. Some of them want to tap the economical resources from these countries to reduce the cost of operations and others want to tap the growing market demand and see most of their growth coming from these nations. While the organizations might have some IT systems to depend to fuel their growth at home but they still need something to hold all their international operations together so that not only expansion but continuously monitoring and improvement actualization is also a possibility. Organizations can not focus on gaining a competitive advantage if they struggle to integrate their own international operations. Their internal operations need to be integrated first to achieving interoperability on a global scale. Seamless integration is easier to manage governance, risk and compliance. It all means that if the core ERP is capable of dealing with issues like multi currency, multi site and multi-company transfer of inventory, consolidation, localization and translation, then it is much easier for the organization to globalize their operations and benefit from them.

ERP also plays a key role in the consolidation of global financials for an organization. The ability to support a multi national implementation from a single instance of ERP and global consolidation across multi site and multi database (yes, that’s correct) implementations are the kind of benefits that enable organizations in their globalization endeavors.

ERP also addresses largely the major challenges, companies face in the wake of globalization, like complex supply chains both in raw material and finished goods, the need to adapt to the rules & laws of foreign nations, lead times that inhibit the ability to respond to customer or market demands and most importantly end to end supply chain visibility.

Having talked about the features of ERP that helps in globalization, there are few limitations in almost all the ERP productsthat still need to be addressed by the providers so that it can become a complete package. Issues like inability to capture the export or shipping documentation, lack of translated versions of ERP or challenges in managing global de-centralized IT installation. All these, force the organizations to customize the product or add best of breed systems to flank the core ERP system so that all of their needs are addressed.

If we look at the Best in Class organizations today, we will know that ERP is already implemented at all their major operating sites and conforms to corporate standards worldwide. Reporting capabilities are fully utilized and assist the executives in taking the right decisions at right time. They have realized the potential of ERP for them, have you?

About Author:

Puneesh Lamba is a seasoned Supply Chain Management and ERP Expert who has more than 16 years of experience in SCM, ERP and Distribution areas in multiple industries and various organizations. He has worked across the globe with his major assignments in India, Americas and Europe. He keeps on contributing in the ERP and SCM space at his site http://www.infoverto.com leveraging the knowledge he has gatherd over the years and likes to debate on new trends as well as strategies for growth in his areas of interest.

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Shivmohan Purohit - A Learner by Heart and ERP Professional by Work. Contribution to success of my organization and people around. Learning new things everyday.
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